Applications of a computational approach of interface and phase-field fracture to materials with inclusions.

Computational analysis of fracture in materials with inclusions is considered as a multi-domain problem. Cracks may appear inside the materials or along material interfaces. The computational model introduces two independent damage parameters which enable to represent fracture by mechanical damage. One of the parameters is defined at the interface, considering it as a thin adhesive layer. The interface damage supposes general stress-strain relationships to behave like in cohesive zone models. The other damage parameter defined for the structural domains is based on the theory of phase-field fracture which causes elastic properties degradation only in a narrow material strip that forms a smeared crack. Both these damaging schemes are expressed in a unique quasi-static energy evolution process, the proposed computational approach is thus introduced in a variational form. The solution is approximated by a staggered time stepping procedure related to a separation of deformation variables from damage ones. Both the deformation solution and damage solution at each instant are obtained by non-linear programming algorithms implemented together within a MATLAB finite element code. The numerical simulation with the model includes a simplified material element with inclusions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]